De re metallica (Latin for On the Nature of Metals (Minerals)) is a book cataloging the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals, published in 1556. The author was Georg Bauer, whose pen name was the Latinized Georgius Agricola. The book remained the authoritative text on mining for 250 years after its publication.
Agricola had spent nine years in the Bohemian town of Joachimsthal, now in the Czech Republic. (Joachimsthal is famo...
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De re metallica (Latin for On the Nature of Metals (Minerals)) is a book cataloging the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals, published in 1556. The author was Georg Bauer, whose pen name was the Latinized Georgius Agricola. The book remained the authoritative text on mining for 250 years after its publication.
Agricola had spent nine years in the Bohemian town of Joachimsthal, now in the Czech Republic. (Joachimsthal is famous for its silver mines and the origin of the word "Thaler.") After Joachimsthal, he spent the rest of his life in Chemnitz, a prominent mining town in what was then Saxony. Both Joachimsthal and Chemnitz are in the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains.
Agricola describes methods for prospecting for minerals, their occurrence in the form of alluvial deposits and the distribution of the veins or ores. He follows these sections by a description of the methods of deep mining, the building of shafts to extract the ore, and tunnels to follow the veins. The...
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